Digital collections

Ephraim Snow Daybook, 1822-1878.

1 vol. (0.25 linear feet).Call no.: MS 198 bd

This unique double entry daybook, dated 1822-1878, offers an intimate glimpse into the lively shipbuilding and whaling village of Mattapoisett as these industries peaked and begin to decline. The book chronicles the labor, poetry, drawings, and letters of Ephraim Snow, a true Jack of all trades, who performed multifarious repairs, odd jobs, carpentry, and ship finish work and took boarders in his home. Interspersed throughout the accounts are pen and ink drawings and romantic poetry and letters, often replete with social commentary.

Contributors

Types of material

Sroka Family Papers, 1842-1960.

Polish family who emigrated to the United States in 1912-1913 and settled in Chicopee, Massachusetts, working in meat packing firms and textile factories, and also as seamstresses and farmers.

Includes birth and wedding certificates, military and employment documentation, residential and passport applications, photographs, and lists of baptisms, weddings, and deaths. Also contains a family history written by Gary Sroka, correspondence, payment book for the Society of St. Joseph (Chicopee, Massachusetts), and a news clipping. All materials exist as photocopies and are written primarily in Polish, German, and Hungarian, though some are in English, Ukrainian, and Russian.

Subjects

St. Kazimier Society Records, 1904-1984.

15 boxes (8 linear feet).Call no.: MS 253 bd

The St. Kazimier Society was an early mutual aid society formed in the Polish community in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Established in 1904, the Society preceded the founding of Our Lady of Czestochowa Church by five years.

Records of the St. Kazimier Society of Turners Falls include administrative files, financial records, educational materials, and photographs. Account books generally reflect members’ premium payments and benefits, the income and expenses of the society itself, and of the club.

Contributors

Types of material

St. Stanislaus Society Records, 1959-1969.

2 vols. (0.15 linear feet).Call no.: MS 254 bd

Named for Polish saint Stanislaus Kostka, the St. Stanislaus Society of Turners Falls was most likely a part of a larger fraternal society, possibly the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America. Ethnic parishes and the fraternal societies that often sprang up around them, served as buffers between the customs and language immigrants brought with them and the new traditions and language they were expected to learn upon entering American society. Fraternal socities like St. Stanislaus offered members a place to celebrate their Polish heritage and Roman Catholic faith, while also assisting them with some of the more practical matters of living in a new country, such as securing life insurance and home mortgages.

Subjects

Fraternal organizations--Massachusetts

Polish Americans--Massachusetts--Turners Falls

Turners Falls (Mass.)--History

Contributors

St. Stanislaus Society (Tuners Falls, Mass.)

Types of material

Ronald Steele Papers, 1956-2000.

A native of New Jersey, Ronald Steele was devoted to both music and photography from an early age. After a tour of duty with the US Air Force Symphony Orchestra and graduate study in violin performance at the University of Michigan, Steele joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in 1963. Active as a conductor as well as a performer throughout his career, he was widely known on campus for his popular course, an introduction to music, which was transformed into an award-winning, nationally-syndicated radio show in the mid-1970s. A founder of the UMass Symphony Orchestra (1963) and the Five College Chamber Soloists, Steele resumed his passion for photography in the late 1970s, opening the Ron Steele Photography Studio, which became an increasing creative outlet after his retirement from the university in 1997.

The Steele collection consists of roughly three linear feet of records documenting his career, including corresponce, programs, notes, teaching materials, and photographs. Reflecting his dual creative interests in music and photography, Steele took dozens of photographs of performers and colleagues.

William B. Stetson Account book, 1856-1870.

As a young man in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, William B. Stetson (b. ca.1836) earned a living by performing manual labor for local residents. Most of his work, and increasingly so, was found in the range of tasks associated with lumbering: chopping wood, sawing boards, making shingles and fence boards. By 1870, Stetson was listed in the federal census as a lumberman in the adjacent town of Leverett.

Stetson’s rough-hewn book of accounts provides detail on the work and expenditures of a young man from Shutesbury, Massachusetts, in the years just prior to the Civil War. Carefully kept, but idiosyncratic, they document a working class mans efforts to earn a living by whatever means possible, largely in lumber-related tasks. His accounts list a number of familiar local names, including Albert Pratt, Sylvanus Pratt, Charles Pratt, Charles Nutting, E. Cushman, John Haskins, and J. Stockwell. Set into the front of the volume are a set of work records dated in Leverett in 1870, by which time Stetson had apparently focused his full energies on lumbering.

Woody Stoddard Papers, ca.1970-2007.

A visionary of modern wind power, Forrest “Woody” Stoddard was a graduate in aeronautics from MIT (BS, 1966; MS 1968) and an early member of the UMass Amherst “wind power mafia.” After service with the Air Force, Stoddard returned home to Amherst, Mass., in 1972 to pursue a doctorate in Ocean Engineering and to take part in the emerging field of alternate energy. Joining the vibrant, interdisciplinary group at UMass gathered around William Heronemus, he began a dissertation in wind turbine dynamic analysis (1979), earning selection as lead developer of the famed 25kW Wind Furnace 1 (WF-1) turbine. To carry research into practice, Heronemus, Stoddard, and other UMass graduates joined US Windpower (later Kenetech), the country’s first producer of large wind turbines and promoter of early wind farms. A tireless advocate for wind power and alternative energy, Stoddard was highly regarded as a researcher but also as a teacher and mentor of a generation of engineers who populate the industry. Nearly coincident with his untimely death on Jan. 25, 2007, the American Wind Energy Association awarded Stoddard its Lifetime Achievement Award.

As a participant in the early years of the wind power group at UMass, Stoddard’s papers offer insight into an engineer’s experiences in the fitful growth of the wind power industry. The collection is rich in engineering data on turbine dynamics and other aspects of wind power and the extension of academic research into the nascent wind power industry, and it includes an interesting array of both personal and professional photographs and correspondence.

Subjects

U.S. Wind Power Associates

University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Department of Mechanical Engineering

John Stone Account Book, 1836-1842.

John Stone appears to have been a storekeeper in North Dennis, Massachusetts in the 1830s and 1840s. He also dealt in lumber, wood products, and building materials.

This volume represents a number of miscellaneous accounts, and because there are no page numbers, the exact nature of the book is difficult to discern and information is difficult to extract. Starting at the front, a more or less complete list of the accounts includes: cost of loads of lumber, 1837-1840; accounts with individuals, 1837-1840; invoice of goods, 1839; bills not paid, 1840-1841.

Subjects

Lumber trade--Massachusetts--North Dennis

Merchants--Massachusetts--North Dennis

North Dennis (Mass.)--History

Types of material

Noah Lyman Strong Account Book, 1849-1893.

Operator of a sawmill and gristmill in Southampton, Massachusetts, later an owner of tenements and other real estate in Westfield, Massachusetts. Includes lists of gristmill and sawmill products, the method and form of payment (cash, barter for goods, or services such as sawing or hauling), real estate records, and miscellaneous personal records (school, clothing, board, and travel expenses for his niece and nephew; accounts for the care and funeral of his father-in-law and the dispensation of his estate; a Strong family genealogy; town of Westfield agreements and expenses; a list of U.S. bonds that Strong bought; and money lent and borrowed, among others).

Subjects

Barter--Massachusetts--Southampton--History--19th century

Boardinghouses--Massachusetts--Westfield--History--19th century

Clapp, Anson--Estate

Fowler, Henry

Grist mills--Massachusetts--Southampton--History--19th century

Guardian and ward--Massachusetts--History--19th century

House construction--Massachusetts--Westfield--History--19th century

Millers--Massachusetts--Southampton--Economic conditions--19th century

Railroad companies--United States--History--19th century

Sawmills--Massachusetts--Southampton--History--19th century

Southampton (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Strong family

Strong, Noah Lyman, 1807-1893--Finance, Personal

Westfield (Mass.)--History--19th century

Westfield (Mass.)--Social conditions--19th century

Contributors

Sunderland Town Records, 1620-1912.

4 reels (0.5 linear feet).Call no.: MS 409 mf

Set off from neighboring Hadley in 1673, Swampfield, as it was known then, or Sunderland, as it is known now, was incorporated in 1718. Microfilm of the town’s records include lists of baptisms, marriages, deaths, as well as minutes of meetings.